Shrewsbury Town star turn Harry Chapman a student of beautiful game

Now, at Shrewsbury Town, the loan star has built up quite the showreel and highlights package of his own in blue and amber.

Chapman's six goals in 15 games – just 12 starts – since checking in on loan from Blackburn Rovers have all been pearlers.

And now it is football fans in Shropshire, and no doubt those watching on from afar in Lancashire, drooling over the 23-year-old's stunning talents.

Not all footballers are football fans. Some prefer to switch off from the clamour when not in action.

Not Hartlepool-born Chapman, he is obsessed. Any game, any where, he will be watching. A student of the game, he is always looking to add to his impressive technical repertoire, quality that has seen him before a favourite with Town fans who have been unable to see him in the flesh.

"I'm constantly watching football – if you ask my missus she hates it!" smiled Chapman, whose love affair with football started early. He was one of 60,000 in the Millennium Stadium to see hometown club Hartlepool lose the League One play-off final to Sheffield Wednesday aged just seven.

"Any game, any league, if it's on then I'll watch. It's just to see what I can watch, what I can learn.

"Any little clips on Twitter, I'll sit there for hours just scrolling through football things, watching the greats, seeing what I can learn from them.

"Growing up my idols were the likes of Messi, Ronaldinho. Everyone around my era idolised Ronaldinho, everyone wanted to be him.

"He played football with so much joy, it was infectious to watch, every time you watched him you wanted to go and play football. It's really fun."

Ronaldinho played the game with his iconic beaming smile. Chapman is at his best, most fluent and, indeed, happiest when expressing himself with guile and skill. He has earned his position in the debate over most gifted Shrewsbury players of recent times.

The former Middlesbrough youngster clearly possesses natural talent far beyond League One level.

While that me be a God-given quality, he has not been able to rest on his laurels, and the 25-yard screamers, or plum volleys or strikes with his weaker left foot are all a result of endless and meticulous training drills.

"I always had a bit of natural ability but I've still had to work on it, you have to keep practicing and doing what you're good at while working with your weaknesses alongside that," Chapman said.

"If you just sack your positives off and work on your weaknesses then it's not going to be a level playing field, you have to keep working on your positives to keep them ticking over and going from there."

Above all Chapman, who has an infectious personality when being interviewed, is modest. His goals, many of them winners, have been worth 13 points for Shrewsbury, with Steve Cotterill's men 10 clear of the League One drop zone.

All six of his goals so far would not be out of place as contenders in Town's goal of the season award come May.

"That's always nice isn't it?" Chapman added. "I always like scoring goals, like the next person, but the team do great work for me to get into those positions. I can't take all of the credit for it."

Chapman knows he has a couple of rivals for goal of the season, including from one of his closest pals in Shropshire, Brad Walker. A former Middlesbrough youth colleague who, for a period, he watched from the stands at Victoria Park in the north east.

"There's been some good goals hasn't there? I didn't see the majority of before I came here but there's still been some good goals," added the loan attacker.

"If Natty's (Ogbeta's) free-kick would've gone in, I've seen Shauny's (Whalley's) free-kick, Gossy has chipped in with a few.

"I've seen Brad's rocket (in the FA Cup at Cambridge), it's all he talks about really. He's from Billingham which is quite close, like five minutes away, we grew up in Middlesbrough's youth team.

"He's a few years older than me so I didn't know him much but I'd go and watch him when he first signed for Hartlepool, I'd be in the stands watching him.

"And now I'm playing with him, it's a bit strange to be honest but he's a nice guy, I get on with him a lot. He's got a hell of a strike on him, hopefully he can get back in the team and score a few more."

Chapman, out of contract at Ewood Park in the summer, is bound to score a few more himself before his final game on loan on May 8. You wouldn't bet against him adding to his list of goal of the season contenders either.

Ultimately, Town fans hope he remains a Shrewsbury player when they are allowed to make their return to Montgomery Waters Meadow in August.